


Music Is My Boyfriend

by my_mad_fatuation



Series: Number One [2]
Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-07-14 07:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7160288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to Number One, we get to see Rae’s side of things in the aftermath of meeting Finn after his concert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Music Is My Boyfriend

Rae still couldn’t believe she gave her number to _Finn Nelson_. She couldn’t believe he knew who she was, either. He was, like, a _fan_ of _her_. She knew she had fans of her blog—regular commenters and people with lots of submissions—but she never expected one of the fucking band members to read her blog, let alone read it regularly.

She wasn’t even capable of wrapping her head around the idea that, on top of all of this, he _liked_ her. He’d said he thought they could be friends, which was wild in and of itself, but then during his babbling he seemed to suggest that his interest was maybe not-so-platonic. Or maybe she just misunderstood.

“He’s not going to text you tonight,” said Chloe, glancing sideways at Rae as she drove them all back to Stamford. They were living back at home for the summer.

“I’m not expecting him to,” Rae replied, a bit too sensitively.

“Then why are you cradling your phone like that? Like you’re waiting.”

“I’m just holding it.”

“Why don’t you text him first?” Izzy suggested, leaning forward over Rae’s seat.

“He didn’t give me his number…” Rae said slowly. She could see Chloe wince. “What?”

“Oh, babes, I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying, yours is probably not the only number he got tonight, you know? I’m only telling you this to protect you.”

“I can handle myself, thanks.”

“I know you can, but this is sort of a new situation for ya.”

“I’ve given guys my number before, Chloe.”

“Yeah, but not _rock stars_.”

“I wouldn’t call him a _rock star_ … They’re only just getting popular in America, so…"

“Still, you have to admit this is weird.”

“I think it’s sweet,” said Izzy.

“I hope so,” said Rae. She looked at her phone expectantly.

“It’s not going to ring any sooner if you stare at it,” said Chloe.

“Fine.” Rae locked it and shoved it in her bag.

Her family was already asleep when Rae got home, so she tried to be quiet as she made her way up to her room, though the stairs were a bit creaky. (She was glad they moved to this house after she left for uni, because if she had grown up here she never would have gotten away with sneaking out late.)

Once she got into her room, she took her camera out of her bag and set it next to her laptop so she could import the photos first thing in the morning, then took out her phone to plug into her charger.

The notification light was blinking. She’d missed a text.

“Rae, I just realized I forgot to give you my number too, so here it is. Finn.”

She stared at the message for a few minutes in disbelief.

In your face, Chloe.

***

Rae slept in later than she intended the next day. In all the excitement, she had forgotten to charge her phone so it died overnight and her alarm didn’t go off. Not that she had anywhere she needed to be, she just wanted to have a post about the TLM show uploaded before noon.

She plugged in her phone and sat at her computer to look through the photos she had taken and see which were the best. She had a bunch from their performance plus a few of the band members out in front of the venue. She felt like a bit of an idiot for not getting a photo _with_ any of them, except the one on Finn’s phone.

She wrote up a little review of the concert—okay, mostly just gushing about how awesome it was—to go with the photos. She also included a few submitted photos from her email inbox of fans with the band members. She decided not to include her after-show photos because she wasn’t going to mention that she’d met any of them.

She just thought it would be weird to be all, “OMG, I totally met Finn and he likes the blog and he totally asked for my number OMGLOL!” If he meant what he said about wanting to be friends, it seemed like it would be an inappropriate thing to do.

She couldn’t just lie and explicitly say that she didn’t meet them, though, especially since Finn said he was putting that photo of them together on Instagram, so she just said nothing and hoped no one would pick up on it.

Within an hour of posting, however, someone had already left a comment with a link to the image, saying, “Why didn’t you tell us about this???”

Another person wrote, “Why is _he_ posting a pic of _you_ and not the other way around?”

“He’s a fan of the blog. What a nerd! LOL!” Rae replied.

She received a text less than half an hour later. “Who are you calling a nerd?” Finn wrote.

“Well, if the shoe fits…” she replied, hoping her ellipsis was light-hearted and not bitchy.

“You caught me and my big nerd feet.”

Wow, he was kind of a dork, and she kind of loved it.

***

Rae agreed to meet up with Finn in Peterborough again—she felt it was too soon to tell him where she actually lived considering she didn’t _really_ know him. He said he was going to be in the area anyway, but he was so flexible about accommodating her schedule that she wondered if he actually was taking the train all the way from London just to see her.

It’s not a date, she told herself. They were just getting to know each other as people as opposed to as “celebrities”—she admitted she did have a certain cult level of celebrity status because of the popularity of her blog. At least in certain, very small circles.

But if it wasn’t a date, why did she change her outfit six times? Especially since she eventually landed on the first outfit she tried. She went for distressed boyfriend jeans, because she thought a skirt would make it seem like she thought it was a date when it wasn’t. She also wore the most the obscure band t-shirt she owned just to seem cool. (She was hoping to trump his musical knowledge, since she knew from interviews that he was a bit of a music geek.)

She took a photo of her outfit in the mirror and sent it to Izzy and Chloe.

“If I go missing, this is what I am wearing,” she wrote them.

“That’s what you’re wearing on your date?” Chloe responded shortly.

“It’s not a date.”

Rae was nervous as the train approached the station and considered just staying on forever so she didn’t have to face what would inevitably be an awkward encounter. But the train came to a stop and she spotted him on the platform.

Oh man, he was pretty sexy, leaning against a pillar. No, don’t think that, Rae. It’s not a date, so don’t think that.

She disembarked from the train and walked towards him cautiously. She was almost surprised when he actually recognized her—of course he would recognize her, he’d met her in person before. But it was still surprising.

“Hi, Rae!” he said happily, opening his arms for a hug which caused her to take a half-step back. “Oh, sorry, I just—“ He lowered his arms and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Good to see ya again.”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“D’you wanna get a coffee or summat?”

“Yeah.”

Why couldn’t she think of any other words to say? Was she just going to say “Yeah” all day?

They walked until they found a Costa and got a couple drinks before sitting at a table in the corner. She assumed he’d gotten used to hiding in the corners of places.

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” he asked her when he noticed she hadn’t touched her beverage.

“I will,” she said hesitantly. “Just… It’s got really pretty latte art and I don’t want to ruin it before I get a picture.”

“Take a picture, then.”

“You won’t think it’s weird?”

He smiled. “I didn’t say that.”

She suppressed a smile as well and pulled out her phone. She didn’t even use Instagram anymore, but she still liked taking pictures of stuff like this for some reason. Old habit, possibly.

She put her phone away after taking the picture and took a sip of her latte.

“So,” he added when she set her mug back down, “I guess you have a boyfriend, then.”

She froze. “What makes you say that?” she said with a hint of panic. She didn’t want him thinking that—even though this totally wasn’t a date.

“Your shirt,” he said with a laugh.

She was wearing a t-shirt that said “music is my boyfriend” in handwriting across her chest. “Oh yeah.” She laughed as well. “It’s the name of a song by this band The Hidden Cameras,” she explained.

“Oh. Never heard of ‘em.”

“They’re a gay folk-pop band from Canada, and I have a friend who lives there and sent me the shirt.” She was pleased that she knew of a band he didn’t.

“Gay folk-pop, eh?”

“What? I have diverse taste.”

“Might have to check ‘em out, then.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a boyfriend. Besides music, of course.”

“Um, no.” She tried to concentrate on not blushing—does that even work?

“That’s...interesting.”

“Is it? It seems pretty boring to me.”

“Maybe you’re just not thinking creatively enough.”

Don’t get any ideas, Rae, this was not a date!

***

“I think I just had a date with Finn Nelson,” Rae instant messaged Chloe and Izzy on the train ride home.

“What do you mean you think?” asked Izzy. “I thought that’s why you went out in the first place.”

“I mean I think it was actually a date, not a whatever I thought it was before.”

“What makes you say that?” said Chloe.

“He kissed me.” (To be fair, he kissed her on the cheek, but it didn’t seem like just a friendly peck. It was like an I-want-to-kiss-you-on-the-mouth-but-it’s-too-soon-but-oh-no-my-face-is-already-here-so-cheek-it-is kiss.)

“Oh my god!!!” said Izzy.

“Are you going to see him again?” asked Chloe.

“Maybe,” said Rae.

Okay, so maybe he’d already asked her to come down and visit him in London next week. And maybe he even said he’d get her a hotel room so she could stay a couple of days.

“You’ve really never been to London?” he had said.

She shrugged. “I’ve been to the airport, but that’s about it.”

“Then I really need to show you the sights, girl.”

***

Finn met Rae at King’s Cross and helped her navigate the Underground to get to her hotel so she could check in and drop off her bag.

“So, what did you want to see first?” he asked when she got back down to the lobby.

“This is going to sound really cheesy, but…” she began, wincing a little. “I’d really like to go on the Eye.”

“That doesn’t sound cheesy at all,” he said with a smile.

“Really?”

“No, it definitely does, I was just trying to make you feel better.”

“We don’t have to, then—“

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course we’ll go. Come on.”

They made their way to the London Eye where they had to wait in a long lineup before they finally stepped into one of the pods.

“It’s a lot bigger in here than I was expecting,” she noted.

“Bigger on the inside, I guess,” he said with a smile.

“You really are a nerd.”

They stood near the windows and Finn pointed out the notable buildings and landmarks.

“Excuse me.”

Rae turned and saw a teenage girl standing behind them, looking at Finn expectantly. “Sorry, are we in your way?”

“No, I was just wondering…” The girl turned to him again. “You’re Finn from Torchlight Monday, right?”

“Heh, yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I am such a huge fan!” she said.

“Oh, thanks, that’s really nice of ya—“

“Can I get a photo with you?”

“Of course, yeah, uh… Rae, d’you mind?”

“No, it’s fine,” said Rae, taking the girl’s phone that she was holding out. “Say ‘cheese.’”

The girl gave her a look of confusion mixed with disgust, so Rae took a couple more shots where she wasn’t making such a face, just to be nice.

“Thank you so much!” the girl said to Finn.

Rae watched her head back towards her family at the other end, holding up her phone to them. The man, whom Rae assumed was the girl’s father, did not look too impressed, which was amusing to Rae.

“Does this happen to you a lot?” she asked Finn.

“Nah, not that often,” he said. “I’m still not used to it, if you couldn’t tell. I mean, it’s one thing to meet fans after a show—that’s when I’m expecting to see them, right? But when I’m just out and about, it’s weird.”

“D’you want me to fight them off ya?” she teased, putting her fists up.

“We’ll see if it comes to that,” he laughed.

***

After dinner, Finn walked Rae back to her hotel, where he kissed her on the cheek—this time it seemed on purpose—before leaving.

She settled into bed with her laptop to check her emails for the first time that day. There weren’t too many submissions, so that was good. She went through to gather all the fan photos so she could schedule a post before bed, and ran across one that looked familiar.

Oh, right, it was because she had just taken that photo earlier in the day.

“Ran into Finn on the London Eye,” the email read. “He was super nice and took a pic with me. His bitchy sister took the photo, so sorry if it sucks. –Nadine”

His _what_? There were just so many things wrong with this, beginning with the fact that any real fan would know he didn’t have any siblings, obviously. But why did this girl assume Rae was his sister? And how was she bitchy? And what was wrong with the photo, other than Nadine’s stupid face?

Rae deleted the email without saving the photo. Screw that girl! If she wanted to brag about the photo that badly she could start her own blog.

Rae decided to write a text post to go up right away, though.

“It’s great to see so many photo submissions from you guys, especially ones taken at or after their shows, but I’m noticing a growing trend of ‘street photos’ where you run into them out in public—or worse, photos of them out in public from afar.

“I just think we ought to respect these guys’ privacy and let them live their lives. They are pretty good about meeting with fans at events, so you will get your chance. Maybe don’t approach them out in public—and certainly don’t take stalkery long-distance shots of them getting their shopping and stuff. (You’ll notice I never post those. It’s for a reason.)

“I love your enthusiasm, though, and I’m sure the band appreciates it too. Let’s just keep that enthusiasm appropriate, yeah? Thanks, and please keep your submissions coming. –Rae”

***

Rae woke up to a mixed bag of comments on her latest blog post. Some people were in total agreement, while others thought she was being a fascist. (Um, okay.) She had no right to tell them what they could and could not do; how dare she? And if she refused to post certain submissions, that was censorship!

Well, it was her fucking blog, so she was going to post or not post whatever she wanted.

She was in a bit of a mood, though, when Finn came to pick her up for the next day of their London adventure.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“Just blog stuff,” she replied.

“Ah. I appreciate what you wrote last night, by the way.”

“You read that already? Yeah, well, the comments ticked me off a bit.”

“I didn’t read the comments yet, but I can imagine some people weren’t pleased with you tellin’ ‘em what to do…”

“Don’t tell me you agree with them!”

“Of course I don’t, I just, I could see that being a possible reaction by some people.”

“Yeah, some people really want to see where you do your shopping.”

“Oh, I get my assistant to do all that stuff for me.”

“Seriously?” She looked horrified.

He burst into laughter. “Oh, your face, it’s just too easy.”

“Alright, alright,” she said, giving him a playful shove.

He hooked his arm around hers before she could pull away. “Where’re we going today, girl?”

“I’d really like to see the Tate Modern. Unless you think that’s boring. Never mind, we can do something else.”

“I haven’t actually been there, myself,” he admitted. “Surprising, I know, considering I’m such an art buff.”

“Of course.”

“But, yeah, let’s go. I think I know how to get there.”

They walked all the way to the tube station with their arms linked until it was too crowded and they had to walk one in front of the other. Finn lead the way, but held out his arm behind him so he could grab Rae’s hand as they maneuvered through the horde.

The gallery was probably more fun for Rae than Finn, considering she had taken several Fine Art courses at uni. She particularly enjoyed the multimedia pieces, though he didn’t really understand them. (His favourite piece was Lichtenstein’s _Whaam!_ , apparently.)

It wasn’t until they stopped to get lunch at the café that she realized they’d been holding hands the whole time. It just kind of fell into the background of what was going on.

He showed her around London for the rest of the day. He even took her to Regent’s Park, which she decided she hated because she had picked up a tea on her way in and the lid wasn’t secured properly so it spilled when she tried to drink it and then the cup started to crumple when she tried to put the lid back on so she just threw it out and sulked for half an hour.

***

They spent the evening at a pub with the other guys from the band, who were pretty cool as well, Rae thought. She didn’t find it quite so surreal to be hanging out with her favourite band now that she’d been sort of dating one of the members. But it was still a bit.

(She was impressed with her own ability to maintain a conversation without once mentioning their band, too.)

Finn escorted her back to her hotel once again, but she kind of didn’t want him to leave and kind of did want him to make out with her for like five hours, so… She had to say something she’d never said before…

“Do you want to maybe come up for a drink?”

“You know I have to pay for anything you take from the minibar, right?” he said jestingly.

“Yeah, well there are free tea bags in the room. Duh.”

“My mistake. I thought you were offering something stronger than tea.”

“There’s nothing stronger than my tea, just you wait.” (That came out weird.)

“After you, then, m’dear,” he said, gesturing towards the lifts.

He followed her up to her room, where she had to swipe her keycard a couple of times to get the door open, stupid thing.

She set her keycard down on the desk and went over to the mini-fridge, which had a small basket of tea bags sitting on top of it.

“I haven’t had any of this tea yet, so it could be shite,” she said as she examined the contents of the basket.

“And how exactly are you going to brew it?” he asked with a mocking smile.

“What?” She looked around for a moment. “There’s no bloody kettle! What kind of hotel leaves tea bags but no fucking kettle?”

“The kind of hotel I can afford.”

“Oh, shit, sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“It’s okay, I was just teasing.” He reached for her hand and added, “You know, there’s a place you could stay next time that has a kettle and wouldn’t cost me a thing…”

“There’s going to be a next time?”

“Of course. Did you think you could see all of London in two days? You haven’t even been to Piccadilly Circus yet.”

“Isn’t that just a bunch of giant adverts?”

“Shush.”

“Fine, well, if I have to come back to this god-awful city,” she said jokingly, “then you’ll just have to come to Stamford so I can show you the sights as well.”

“Deal.”

She smiled nervously when she realized she was just standing there holding his hand, fresh out of banter, and didn’t know what to say next.

“So—“ they both said at the same time.

“You first,” he said.

“No, you go.”

“It’s just, you kind of lead me up here under false pretenses—“

“I thought there would be a kettle!”

“—so I should probably just leave, right?”

“If you want to…”

“Do you want me to?”

“Do you want me to want you to?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

She was growing frustrated and worried he was going to leave before she could put her face on his face. “Look, do ya wanna stay and make out with me or not?”

“Um, yes.”

***

It was quite late by the time Finn left, so Rae went to sleep without even bothering to check her emails. They would still be there in the morning.

And boy, were they ever!

She checked just after she woke up and found several emails and comments asking, “Is this you???” and, “What are you hiding?” and a link to an image-hosting site with an album full of photos of her and Finn out and about in London.

It looked like someone had spotted them holding hands outside the Tate Modern and followed them all the way to Regent’s Park. Terrifying!

The captions on the photos were even worse:

“Finn and some fat bitch.”

“Who is this skank? Get away from my Finn!”

“Who knew he was a Chubby Chaser?”

Rae was mortified and could hardly believe someone could actually do that, except that she’d seen this sort of thing done to other people too many times before. Basically, whenever one of these stalker-type “fans” spotted any of the band members near another human, they would freak out. And when the band member in question looked at all affectionate with that human, all hell broke loose. (Photos of them with animals were fine, though.)

Luckily, since most of those comments had links in them, they had to be approved before they would show up on the blog, so she just deleted them, along with the emails. She just could not deal with them right now.

She still had to finish packing and get checked out of the hotel before her train ride home.

Finn took her to the train station, even though she probably could have managed to find her way on her own. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get a chance to say goodbye, she was just afraid of them being spotted in public again.

She was careful not to make physical contact with him the whole way there, but before she could go for the train he went in for a kiss.

“Is something wrong?” he asked when she turned her head away.

She stopped herself from breaking into tears, just barely. “I think you have a stalker,” she said, though her voice was cracking. “And they saw us together yesterday and now really horrible things are being said about us, and some of my readers recognized me from the photos and are wondering if I’m hiding something, which I am because it’s none of their business, but still—“

“Whoa, hold on. Someone’s stalking me?”

“Well, I don’t know, but they followed us around for a bit yesterday and posted pictures online and I deleted all the comments from the blog but the photos are still out there and—“

“There aren’t any photos of us, like, _in the hotel_ , right?”

“Of course not, you idiot.”

“Okay, so, there’s nothing that’s going to ruin your future career or anything—“

“But it could ruin yours!”

“How?”

“Fans are getting jealous and they think you’re weird for dating a fat girl and—“

“Who cares?”

“Well, don’t you?” She wiped her eye with the back of her hand to stop a tear from falling.

He caught her hand as she was lowering it. “I don’t care what people say about me, I just care what they’re saying about you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. “Anyway, I need to get my train, so…”

“Let me know that you get home alright, yeah?”

She nodded and he kissed her on the cheek again before she went to get on the train. She figured she should just try to ignore the photos and pretend they didn’t exist. It wasn’t even that many people who messaged her about them, compared to her total number of readers, so it wasn’t that big a deal. She should just forget about them entirely.

***

“Who is Finn Nelson’s plus-size mystery girlfriend?”

Someone had sent Rae a link to an article with this title. She couldn’t believe it. Some trashy entertainment “news” site had picked up the photos and was speculating about her relationship with Finn.

“Torchlight Monday’s bass-player, Finn Nelson, was spotted around London on Tuesday getting chummy with an unknown plus-size woman. Could The Ladykiller himself have a girlfriend after all? And who is she?”

(Why the fuck did they have to mention she was “plus-size” so many times? Or at all.)

“Nelson has stated in interviews that he does not have a girlfriend, despite some people speculating that he is dating Mancunian actress and former schoolmate, Lia Wells. Both Nelson and Wells have denied these rumours, stating that they are ‘just friends.’ Some remained unconvinced after Nelson accompanied Wells to the BAFTA Awards.”

What kind of bullshit was this? Lia Wells had also implied in interviews that she preferred _women_ , but okay. A few commenters pointed this out but they were pounced upon immediately for “hating” Lia.

Rae despised reading the comments on sites like this, but she couldn’t look away. There were a lot of hate comments about her, particularly focusing on her size, of course. One person even suggested that she must have cancer or something and this was some sort of wish-granting program to spend the day with a celebrity.

She deleted all her emails without even reading some of them—she could tell by the subject lines that she wasn’t going to like them—and closed her laptop. She couldn’t even look at her blog. She was just done.

“Why are people shitting all over you on your blog???” Finn texted her.

“Didn’t you read the latest ‘news’ article about you?” she replied.

“No. BRB, googling myself.”

“You’re filthy.”

“;-)”

She was glad that she was still able to laugh after all of this. Maybe she just had to look at it as a funny thing. Okay, yes, people were saying really awful things about her, but she didn’t know them. She shouldn’t let it get to her.

“What is wrong with people?” Finn said a few minutes later.

“Right? It’s messed up.”

“Did you read the follow-up article that just went up?”

“No.”

“Google me.”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

“;-)”

She laughed again and went back to her laptop. She took a deep breath as she opened it. She wasn’t going to let this get to her.

The latest “news” about Finn was an article called, “Could TLM’s Finn Nelson be dating his _biggest_ fan?”

(How clever.)

“The mysterious plus-size woman, seen above with Torchlight Monday’s Finn Nelson in London this week, is rumoured to be the owner of one of the most popular TLM blogs and goes by the name Rae.

“According to her bio, she is a 21-year-old university student, and the number one TLM fan.”

(They made that last part up, didn’t they? She never claimed to be their number one fan, only to have the number one fan-run blog.)

“Rae was pictured alongside Nelson in one of his recent Instagram posts right after the show in Peterborough. It is unclear if they were acquainted before this point. Their relationship status is also unknown.

“Some regular readers of the blog have come forward to express their concern, claiming that Rae’s blog is no longer a trustworthy or reliable source because she lied about her relationship with Nelson.

“Several people are even claiming that their relationship dates back before the full-length album release, speculating that the hit single ‘To Be Continued’ was written for her.”

Rae couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some of these theories.

“That was really sweet of you to write TBC for me, even though you didn’t know I existed at the time,” she said to Finn when she had finished reading the article.

“Oh yeah, I went back in time and did it right now, just for you, girl.”

“Aw, thanks.”

***

Rae had asked Finn if it was alright for her to write a post explaining their relationship for her blog so that readers would feel they could trust her again. Although she respected his privacy, her reputation was also on the line. It’s not like she was going to post intimate details or anything.

He said he was fine with it, though her paranoia had her worrying that he didn’t really mean it.

“Really,” he said when they were chatting on Skype that evening. “I don’t care if people know. Yeah, it’s not their business, but neither is my shoe size and yet that is somehow floating around out there.”

“Yeah, I never understood that,” she said.

“But if this is going to help you get your readers back, then go for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, now can we talk about something else?”

“Like what?”

“Like how fucking weird that ‘Music Is My Boyfriend’ song is!”

“You listened to it, then?” she asked, laughing.

“And I looked up the lyrics to make sure I was hearing them right. Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”

“No, I did. I downloaded their complete discography.”

***

“Hey guys, there have been some rumours floating around and I thought I would take this opportunity to set the record straight. It is true that Finn Nelson and I are together. We met for the first time at the Peterborough show and started dating shortly thereafter.

“He and I were just enjoying ourselves in London when some ‘fan’ decided to take creepy stalker photos of us from a distance—you know how I feel about those. This was an invasion of Finn’s privacy, and of mine.

“More than that, people have been using this opportunity to say hurtful things about us and spread lies. Let us be very clear: I did not _steal_ him from Lia Wells. He was single when we met and had been for some time. And he is not pity-f***ing me. That is offensive not only to me (and to him), but to all us so-called ‘plus-size’ women whom society deems unworthy of love.

“For those of you claiming that I cannot be trusted because I did not disclose this relationship sooner, I would just like to say that, while I understand your concern, I was only trying to respect his privacy by not divulging details of his personal life on this platform. However, he and I have agreed that, because of the way people have been reacting, it is best for us to come forward now.

“I would appreciate your understanding in this matter and ask that we move on to talk about the music, which is why we’re all here anyway. Let’s keep this blog a safe space for everyone. Thanks! –Rae”

The feedback on Rae’s latest text post was mixed, as she expected. Some people totally supported her decision to keep things private while others thought she was just showing off now, bragging about her relationship with a celebrity. (How she could be doing both baffled her.)

But none of their comments could prepare her for what was to come.

Two days later, that same highly reputable entertainment news site posted an article entitled, “Torchlight Monday’s Finn Nelson says he is ‘just friends’ with blogger Rae Earl.”


End file.
